


In The Clear

by nouseforaname



Series: Recovery Mode [7]
Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-13
Updated: 2020-06-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:20:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24693670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nouseforaname/pseuds/nouseforaname
Summary: Just when Darlene thought things were finally going back to normal, Dom gets a new case at work and is sucked into old habits.
Relationships: Darlene Alderson/Dominique DiPierro
Series: Recovery Mode [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1625374
Comments: 4
Kudos: 46





	In The Clear

It’s Sunday morning, exactly one week before Christmas, and Darlene wakes up alone in Dom’s bed. She groggily rises to a sitting position, yawning as she rubs her eyes with her knuckles, and immediately homes in on the redhead sitting at the desk a few feet away. Her laptop is sitting in the corner next to a stack of papers; the screen is displaying row after row of what looks like chat log history from some online forum. Dom’s still wearing the same shorts and t-shirt she wore to bed last night, her tangled hair is tied back in a messy ponytail, and she’s hunched over so far forward that her nose is only inches away from the report she’s poring over.

“Dom?” Darlene calls out to her, and she frowns when she doesn’t respond. She rolls out of bed, tugging at the hem of the blue and white striped-button up she’s currently wearing as she pads over to where Dom’s sitting, standing directly behind her. She gently presses her palms on her shoulders and frowns when she feels how stiff her muscles are.

“Hey.” Dom doesn’t even bother to look up at her. She reaches for the stack of evidence photos sitting in front of her laptop and begins to scrutinize them.

“Good morning to you too.” Darlene scrunches her brow in confusion. She skeptically glances at the mug hanging out by the mountain of papers. “How long have you been here?”

Dom’s eyes are still trained on the photos as she dismissively shrugs her shoulders. “Dunno. Few hours, maybe?”

She wasn’t like this yesterday. After the impromptu make up session they had Friday night she figured things will finally go back to normal and they can pick up where they left off, but apparently there’s just one more hurdle to hop over before everything will _truly_ be okay. “Were you up all night?”

“What?” Dom finally breaks away from her desk, grabbing her phone and squinting at the screen. When she realizes Darlene’s right, her eyes widen and she lets out a short burst of laughter. “Wow. Guess I was up all night.” She immediately places her phone back on the desk and returns to the photos.

“Are you not aware of the fucking sun lighting up the room right now?” Darlene quirks an eyebrow. “Please tell me you’ve noticed that the sun is up and it’s no longer nighttime.”

“I didn’t, actually.” Dom still hasn’t made eye contact with her. “Lost track of time, I guess.”

Darlene sighs. “Dom.” She squeezes her shoulders again, but she still isn’t getting a response. She grits her teeth and raises her voice a little. _“Dom.”_

The redhead heaves a loud sigh; she pulls away from her desk again, but she doesn’t turn around to face her. “What?” Her tone is irritable and it grates against Darlene’s nerves, but she tries her best to keep her cool. They _just_ got back together after spending three weeks apart; the last thing she wants right now is another fight.

“One: It’s Sunday; why the fuck are you working?” Darlene glares at the top of her head. “And two: If you really stayed up all night for this, I think you owe it to yourself to get some sleep.” She gives her shoulders a third squeeze. “Come back to bed with me.”

“I’m not tired.” Dom shrugs as she flips through a few of the photographs. “And I’m working because something came to me in the middle of the night and I couldn’t let it go.” She reaches for her coffee mug and takes a sip. “I’ve been on a roll ever since. I can’t stop now.”

“Yes you can.” Darlene insists as she lunges forward and slams Dom’s laptop closed.

“Hey!” Dom finally glances over her shoulder to glower at her, and when Darlene spots the shadows beneath her wintry grey eyes she feels an ache growing in her chest.

She grabs the redhead’s wrist, pulling hard enough to force her out of her chair, and drags her to the bedroom. She can hear Dom protesting behind her, but she ignores all of it and places her hands on her chest, glaring at her again before shoving her onto the mattress.

“Darlene,” Dom groans as she scrambles on top of her. “Not now.”

“Yes, _now.”_ Darlene frames the redhead’s face with her hands. “You stayed up all night doing who the fuck knows when you could’ve waited until Monday. You’re not on the clock, Dom. You don’t need to be doing this.” When Dom tries to squirm out of her grasp she tightens her hold on her. “Sleep with me, please?”

Dom exhales loudly through her nose and gives up trying to fight back, flopping defeatedly against the bed and shaking her head as she glowers at the ceiling. “Fine.”

Darlene shakes her head before fitting it into the side of her neck. “You’ll thank me later.”

“Sure.” Dom’s response is clipped, but she places her hands on the small of Darlene’s back anyway and closes her eyes, breathing in deep - but it sounds like she’s doing it out of frustration rather than relief.

Whatever it is, it’s rubbing Darlene the wrong way. She tries not to think about it too much and hopes this is just an isolated incident. It’s not uncommon for people to suddenly get bitten by inspiration at weird times of the day; it happens to everyone, even FBI agents. She gets it, she really does, and she knows how frustrating it is when someone intervenes and tries to slow her roll, but in Dom’s case it had to happen- at least that’s what she’s trying to tell herself.

Darlene finally closes her eyes as she snuggles closer to the redhead, but she can’t help but feel like there’s something wedged in between them.

* * *

It’s Monday morning and Darlene’s eyes are tracking Dom’s every movement. The redhead is fully dressed for work, handbag dangling off her shoulder, gun securely fastened in its holster, and ID badge clipped to her belt, but she’s been circling the apartment for the past ten minutes. Her brow is furrowed as she checks the desk, the small dining table, the closet, even the bathroom.

“What are you doing?” Darlene is sitting on the edge of Dom’s bed with her hands in her lap.

Dom drops to her hands and knees to check beneath the bed, but she doesn’t find whatever she’s looking for. She shoots back up to her feet and shakes her head. “Have you seen my glasses?”

“No,” Darlene quirks an eyebrow. “But it’s not like you need them where you’re going. You can just look when you’re back later.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Dom sighs before bending over and cupping a hand against Darlene’s cheek; she quickly kisses the top of her head before backing away and heading for the door, completely unaware of the annoyed expression clearly strewn across Darlene’s face. “I gotta go.”

Just as Dom opens the door, Darlene calls out to her. “You’re heading over later, right?”

Dom nods, but her back is still facing her. “Yeah, of course.” She plucks her keys out of her bag and steps outside. “I’ll see you tonight.”

When Dom closes the door behind her, Darlene rolls her eyes and heaves a sigh before throwing her hands up in defeat. She glances around the small apartment, noting the mess scattered on pretty much every surface: Clothes, takeout containers, empty liquor bottles, reports, folders - it’s a painful reminder of how things used to be, and the longer Darlene stares at it, the angrier she gets.

“God fucking damn it.” She growls as she begrudgingly rises to her feet, stomping over to the kitchen and glaring at the stacks of unwashed dishes sitting in the sink. She curses again as she crouches down to open the cabinet below, reaching in and grabbing a large garbage bag before slamming it shut and storming back to the little table by the wall. She grabs everything that doesn’t belong and tosses it in the bag before tying it up and throwing it by the front door. She heads back into the kitchen and sucks in a deep breath before tackling the dishes, shaking her head and cursing under her breath the entire time. When everything’s dried and neatly put away, she picks up every single article of clothing on the floor and flings them into the laundry basket in the closet. She even fixes the mountains of papers on the desk and cuts them down into smaller piles so they won’t fall over.

There is so much shit piled up that it takes Darlene the whole morning to make the apartment look presentable. Once it’s clean enough to her satisfaction, she hops in the shower and changes into a pair of torn up jeans and one of Dom’s button-ups. She sweeps over the apartment one last time to make sure everything’s good to go, and then she shoves her arms into her jacket, slips on her heart-shaped sunglasses, and finally leaves, grabbing the garbage bag just as she slams the door behind her.

She tosses the bag with the rest of the trash sitting on the curb before heading towards the closest subway station. She’s fuming on the entire ride back to her and Elliot’s building, and she’s still pissed off when she heads into her brother’s suite and scoops Flipper into her arms.

She embarks on another spontaneous adventure around the city with the tiny black terrier. It’s cold as hell and the onslaught of Christmas decorations littering every store window and street corner makes her sick to her stomach, but she sucks it up because she’s too riled up to sit at home all afternoon. She knows for sure that the second she’s idle, she’ll just stew over the redhead who's clearly falling back into old habits.

Elliot’s already home by the time Darlene and Flipper come back; he’s bent over the stove, frowning at whatever the hell is in the pot sitting in front of him. “Hey.”

“Did you see Dom on your way out when you left work?” Darlene hangs Flipper’s leash on the hook by the front door before crossing her arms.

“Uh,” Elliot rubs the back of his neck before reaching for the fork sitting on the counter. “No, I don’t think so.”

“What the hell do you mean you _don’t think so?”_ She rolls her eyes. “You either saw her or you didn’t. You can spot her red ass hair from miles away.”

“Okay,” Elliot dips the fork into the pot and squints at the small bunch of spaghetti curled around it. “I didn’t see her.”

“But don’t you guys usually leave at the same time?”

“Yeah.” He shrugs and switches his attention to the saucepan sitting next to the pot; something red and chunky is bubbling in it. “So?”

Darlene heaves a sigh. “So, if you didn’t see her on your way out, you didn’t leave at the same time.”

Elliot pokes the red concoction with his fork, looking slightly concerned and maybe a little bit afraid. “Then I guess we didn’t leave at the same time today.”

“Has this been happening a lot?”

“I dunno.” Elliot cautiously stirs the sauce with his fork. “Sometimes we leave at the same time, sometimes we don’t. Why would I be keeping track of that?”

“Oh my God.” Darlene throws her hands up. “Did you know that she’s working on a new case?”

Elliot raises the fork to his mouth, his forehead crinkling as he tries to figure out what’s missing; he reaches for the salt and adds a little bit to the sauce. “Kind of. She got it a few weeks ago - something about a group of eco-terrorists hacking into the government’s-”

“I don’t give a shit about the case.” Darlene grumbles. “Have you noticed anything different with her since she started working on it?” She vaguely gestures with her hands. “Not leaving at the same time as you, for instance, or not eating-”

“Oh,” That seemed to have awoken something in him. “We haven’t had lunch together recently.”

Okay, now we’re getting somewhere. “When was the last time?”

He shrugs again before reaching for the overhead cabinet. “Awhile. Had to be almost a month ago.”

“Anything else?”

Elliot pulls out a strainer. “Her door’s been closed a lot. She usually keeps it open. I thought it was weird at first but I figured I was just overthinking.” He grabs the pot and heads for the sink. “Why are you asking me all of this?”

Darlene steps closer, crossing her arms again before leaning against the nearby wall. “You know how Dom gets when something new at work comes up. She zeroes in on it and forgets the rest of the world exists. It’s not healthy.”

He almost burns himself when he pours the hot water out of the pot and into the strainer. “I thought she stopped doing that.”

“So did I,” She mutters as she watches him strain the spaghetti. “But apparently I was wrong.” She sighs and shakes her head. “I’m worried about her.”

“Why don’t you talk to her about it?” He shakes the strainer to get rid of the excess water.

“I’m planning to.” Her eyes follow him as he shuffles back to the stove to stir the sauce again; it actually smells pretty good. “She’s supposed to be coming over soon.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her phone, frowning when she doesn’t see a text or missed call notification. She should be here by now.

“Try not to worry so much.” Elliot gives the sauce another taste test, smiling when he realizes he didn’t fuck it up after all. “It’s nothing you guys can’t work out. If you can get through the Susan Jacobs thing, you can get through anything.”

“Yeah.” She’s still frowning at her blank phone screen. “I should go.”

“Wait,” He gestures at her with his fork. “I need a second opinion.”

Darlene rolls her eyes, but she heads over to him and snatches the fork out of his hand anyway. She dips the fork into the sauce and tastes it, blinking incredulously. “This tastes exactly like Trudie’s pasta.”

He brightens at her words. “That’s what I was going for.”

She quirks an eyebrow as she hands the fork back to him. “How the hell do you know how to make this?”

“She gave me her recipe.” He casually replies.

Her eyes narrow. “When?”

“You guys were still upstairs. I was helping Dom’s grandma with the pie when I told Trudie I wanted to learn how to cook so I can cut down on getting takeout,” He turns off the stove. “So she gave me her sauce recipe and said this was a good start.”

Darlene shakes her head. “This is getting weird. I’m out.” She spins on her heel and pulls her keys out of her jacket pocket, briefly sinking to her knees so she can pet Flipper one last time before leaving her brother’s apartment.

It’s just past six and Darlene still hasn’t heard from Dom. She flops on the couch and briefly debates calling her, but she decides to hold off for now. She wastes some time mindlessly flipping through channels on TV and scrolling through her phone, but when seven o’clock hits and she still hasn’t heard from the redhead, she gives in and calls.

“What the fuck?” Darlene mutters in disbelief when it goes straight to voicemail; she gapes at her phone for a second and redials her number, only for it to go straight to voicemail again.

Okay, she shouldn’t panic. There’s no reason to panic. Knowing Dom, she’s most likely so focused on her work that she forgot to charge her phone and she didn’t notice that it died. That’s the most logical explanation.

Maybe she should give it a bit of time before she calls again. Darlene anxiously starts to pace her apartment, rumpling her hair with one hand and holding onto her phone with the other. She calls again half an hour later, but she only receives the same voicemail message. She sucks in a breath and closes her eyes as she tries to recompose herself, repeating the same mantra over and over again in her head.

_Dom’s fine. Dom’s fine. Dom’s fine._

Her thumb anxiously slides back and forth across her phone’s screen as she tries to figure out what to do next. It’s not like she can just march into FBI headquarters to see if she’s still there, and she’s sure security will tell her to leave if she just loiters outside. She wonders if she should drop by Dom’s apartment, but what if she’s not there? That would only make her worry more, but at the same time staying here isn’t really going to make much of a difference either.

Darlene heads into her bedroom and grabs her backpack before stepping into her boots and throwing her jacket on. She’s riddled with anxiety the entire way there; when she finally approaches Dom’s front door and slips her key into the lock, she bursts in with the intention of yelling at the redhead when she finds her bent over another pile of photographs by her desk or squinting at her laptop screen, but she skids to a stop when she realizes she’s the only person in here. It doesn’t even look like Dom was here in the first place.

“Fucking asshole-” Darlene hisses through clenched teeth as she pulls out her phone. When it takes her straight to voicemail again, she waits for the tone before she starts yelling. “It would’ve been nice to have a heads up before you decided to drop off the face of the fucking earth. Seriously, though, where the FUCK are you?” She closes her eyes and slowly breathes in, her shoulders slightly quivering as she tries to calm down. When she opens her eyes, she speaks in a much lower voice. “Just...whatever.I hope you’re okay. Call me back when you can.” She swallows. “Please.”

She hangs up and throws her phone on the bed before clutching her head in her hands and growling out of frustration. It looks like there isn’t much else for her to do, so she heads into Dom’s closet and changes into the usual striped button-up before defeatedly crawling into bed. She keeps her phone under her pillow just in case, but she knows she’s just bringing her hopes up for nothing.

She somehow manages to fall asleep a few hours later with her phone loosely cradled in one hand.

* * *

It’s early Tuesday morning when Darlene wakes up to Dom’s fingers running through her hair.

She slowly rolls on her back and rubs her eyes. “Where the hell have you been?”

“I’m sorry.” Dom sighs; she’s sitting next to her, still wearing the clothes she had on when she left her yesterday morning. Her hair is messier than usual, and there’s something dark smudged across her cheek. She smells like ash. “I found a lead and it couldn’t wait, so I-”

“What do you mean _it couldn’t wait?”_ Darlene narrows her eyes. “If those hippies know you’re onto them, I doubt they’ll be hacking anyone else anytime soon. If they’re smart, they’ll lay low for awhile before striking again.”

Dom furrows her brow. “Wait, how do you know about the eco-terrorists?”

“Elliot told me.” Darlene sits up and rubs her eyes again. “He said you’ve been acting weird since you got this case.”

The redhead gulps. “I’ve just been really busy.”

“So busy you couldn’t even tend to your basic human needs like sleeping and eating?” Darlene grumbles, but her expression quickly softens and she sighs. “I was worried about you. I worried about you all night, Dom.”

“I know, and I’m sorry - I really am.” Dom frowns. “This is gonna sound like I’m making an excuse but I swear to God, my phone died and-”

“You forgot to charge it.” Darlene listlessly finishes for her. “I figured it out after it went to voicemail for the second time.” She turns away from her. “It sounded better than turning off your phone on purpose.”

“You know I wouldn’t do that unless I absolutely had to,” Dom insists. “And if I had to, I would let you know first.” She leans in and presses a kiss to the side of her head, murmuring against her skin. “I’m coming over tonight and I mean it this time. We’ll watch a bunch of awful movies and eat popcorn until we get sick.”

Darlene leans away to frown at her, paying close attention to the shadows beneath her eyes, which seemed to have gotten darker since the last time she saw her. “You’re still going to work? You’ve been out all night; you should be staying home and getting some rest.”

“I’m fine.” Dom stands up and heads to her closet to grab a new outfit before crossing the small apartment towards the bathroom.

Darlene groans and buries her head in her hands just as Dom closes the door. She’s still in the same position when the redhead returns twenty minutes later in a set of fresh clothes, only deciding to move when Dom sits next to her and slips her arms around her waist to pull her onto her lap. She can feel her head pressing down on her shoulder, and she tries to ignore the way her heartbeat accelerates at the contact, but it’s difficult when she just spent most of last night worrying about where she’s been.

“What I did to you was really shitty.” Dom sighs; her breath is warm against the skin on Darlene’s neck and she shivers in response. “I shouldn’t have stood you up like that.”

“I don’t care that you didn’t show up last night; that was the last thing on my mind.” Darlene sighs as she burrows her hands in Dom’s hair, fingers sifting through red strands. “You need to take care of yourself, Dom. You’re not invincible.”

“I know.” The arms around Darlene’s waist tighten, pulling her closer. “I promise - once I get to your place tonight, I’m all yours. You can chain me to the bed if you think that’ll get me to sleep.”

Darlene doesn’t want to laugh because that means the redhead wins, but she ends up doing it anyway. “Guess I’ll have to make a trip to the hardware store.”

Delighted that she’s finally able to make her smile, Dom grins before pressing her lips against hers in an enthusiastic kiss, and when they break apart she takes a second to glance around the tidy apartment. “I like what you did with the place, by the way.”

The way Dom lights up makes it impossible for Darlene not to smile back, but she can’t give her complete satisfaction, so she tries to soften the impact by rolling her eyes. “Someone has to clean up around here, and I guess it has to be me since you clearly aren't doing any of it.” She shakes her head in disappointment. “Honestly, we need to just scrap everything and redo the entire place.”

Dom leans away to gawk at her. “What?”

Darlene raises an eyebrow. “You can’t possibly be okay with living like this.” She holds out an arm, gesturing towards the shabby furniture, the scuffed floor, and the chipped paint on the walls. “This just screams _down on her luck crack whore._ It can’t be intentional - unless that’s the look you were going for. In that case, I guess you nailed it.”

Dom shoots her a glare. “Okay, that’s a bit harsh - and have you seen your place? It’s devoid of all life.”

“And yours has seen a little _too_ much life.” Darlene laughs, and Dom rolls her eyes. “Alright, I’ve decided - we’re totally giving your apartment a makeover once you’re off for the holidays.”

“Since when was this _your_ decision?” Dom’s incredulous. “What if I’m opposed to it?”

“Too bad - the decision’s already been made.” Darlene grins. “And I’m talking the _whole_ apartment: Bathroom, kitchen, the works. We’re going all out: New furniture, new appliances, new tiles, new floor, new paint, new everything - and don’t even think of complaining about money, ‘cause I know how much we put in your eCoin wallet, and I’m pretty sure you didn’t blow all of it on your little rendezvous in Europe.”

“Is this really necessary?” Dom groans.

“Uh, duh.” Darlene rolls her eyes. “This past year’s been all about new starts and shit, right? So why not renovate your apartment to reflect that?” She throws her arms around Dom’s neck. “We’re gonna Cinderella the fuck out of this place - except that it’ll be pretty permanently and it won’t go back to a shithole after midnight.”

Dom sighs, but Darlene knows that a part of her agrees, because her expression eventually relaxes and she leans in to press a kiss against her jaw. “You need to run things by me first before you actually go and do them. I’m not gonna just let you paint the whole place neon green or anything.”

Darlene looks genuinely offended. “I don’t know what kind of taste you think I have, but whatever it is, it’s wrong. Neon green?” She scoffs. “You don’t know me at all.”

Dom rolls her eyes. “It’s not about the colour of the paint; it’s about us talking it over first before we make any big decisions.”

“Whatever.” Darlene mutters. “I just want to come here without feeling like I just walked into a Prohibition-era underground brothel.”

“Oddly specific comparison, but okay.” The redhead heaves another sigh. “We’ll fix it up a bit if that’ll make you happy.”

“I’m downright fucking ecstatic.” Darlene glances down at her, and when she sees the smile stretched wide across Dom’s lips she smiles back before kissing her. “You won’t regret it.” She mumbles against her mouth before scrambling off of her and playfully shoving her away. “Now get the hell out before I kick you out myself.”

Dom quickly moves in to kiss her one last time; that same big stupid grin is still plastered on her face when she moves away and rises to her feet, and the grin persists when she heads over to the table to grab her handbag.

Darlene quizzically stares at her, laughing incredulously. “Stop fucking looking at me like that. It’s weird.”

“I can’t help it.” Dom is _still_ grinning as she’s halfway out, laughing and quickly ducking behind the door to narrowly avoid the pillow Darlene just whipped in her direction.

When Dom is finally gone, Darlene laughs to herself and shakes her head in amusement as she finally crawls out of bed and gets ready for the day. She’s feeling a lot more confident now as she leaves Dom’s place and makes her way back to her own; the redhead seems to be aware that the choices she’s been making recently haven’t been the best ones, and if she’s as smart as Darlene knows she can be, she’ll realize she can’t keep living like that and change her ways.

The thing is, that’s what would happen if they lived in a perfect world, and she is sure as hell that they _don’t_ live in one.

It’s approaching eight in the evening and Dom still isn’t here. It’s beginning to feel a little bit like Groundhog Day.

Darlene huffs in frustration as she reaches for her phone, but just as she’s about to call the redhead she hears a click at her front door; Dom rushes in, red hair all over the place and a paper bag blotchy with grease stains clutched in one hand.

“Look who finally decided to show up.” Darlene mutters as Dom hastily places the bag on the kitchen counter before jogging over to place a chaste kiss on her cheek.

“Sorry,” She throws her a sheepish smile; her face is pink and she’s slightly out of breath. “Just needed to finish up a few things before heading over, but I’m here now, and I promise there’ll be no more work-related distractions for the rest of the night.” When Darlene’s expression doesn’t change, Dom clears her throat and jerks her head in the direction of the paper bag. “I brought shawarma.”

“You’re lucky I’m starving.” Darlene rolls her eyes as she heads over to the kitchen to open the bag.

The pair eat in awkward silence. Dom tries to quell it every now and then by picking a random topic to talk about, but Darlene doesn’t indulge her; she’ll give her a one-word answer, at most three, before ignoring her in favour of looking through her phone. After cleaning up, they head over to the couch and put on yet another shitty low budget horror movie. Darlene ducks under Dom’s arm and presses her cheek against her shoulder as the opening credits fade onto the screen. She can’t help but feel like something’s off; there’s a stiffness to Dom’s body language, almost like she’s poised and ready for something. Her expression is tense but also hard to read, which Darlene hates because she’s usually able to figure out what Dom’s thinking and feeling by just looking at her. It feels like there’s an invisible barrier between them now, a gap that she fears will continue to widen if they keep this up.

Her brain decides to make things worse by jumping to the worst possible conclusions. Maybe Dom’s been throwing herself into her old ways because she hasn’t fully gotten over the Susan Jacobs thing and she probably never will. Maybe she came to a realization that she can’t ever forgive Darlene for what she did and she realized that she was actually right all those months ago upstate when she told her she was a terrible person and that’s all she’ll ever be. She probably thought back to that very day and thought to herself: _Wait, I was right. All she deserves is pure and utter agony. That’s all I ever really felt for her. She ruined my life once before and she’s clearly trying to ruin it again. I have to put a stop to this._

Darlene swallows hard, angling her head slightly downward so it’s harder to see the unshed tears glazing over her eyes. She’s being stupid, she knows she is, but what if there’s a possibility she’s right? Even if the chances were a million in one, even if it was highly unlikely, it could still happen, and knowing her luck it very well could.

“Hey.” Dom is kissing her forehead. “You okay?” There’s a small smile on her face and a tenderness to her stare; it’s the complete opposite of the way she looked when she told her to live and die with the fact that she ruined her life and took everything from her. It’s a remnant of the Dom she so sorely misses, the Dom she desperately wishes was here right now - like, _really_ here and not just brief glimpses of her - so she can tell her that she’s wrong and that she’s definitely overthinking things.

“Yeah.” Darlene tries not to stare too long because she doesn’t want her to notice how close she is to crying. “I’m just...really glad you’re here now. Better late than never, I guess.”

“I’m glad I’m here too.” Dom smiles. “I miss doing this with you.”

“Me too.” She pushes herself up so she can run her nose against her jawline. She smiles when Dom’s facial muscles relax a little, and when the redhead lowers her head to kiss her she feels a little ridiculous for worrying in the first place. Maybe she’s just paranoid from what happened last night. She’s probably just overthinking this. Dom’s okay. _They’re_ okay.

Dom gently pushes forward, forcing Darlene to lie flat across the couch. She kisses her again, this time with more urgency; she grasps her thighs with both hands, smiling against Darlene’s mouth when she gasps at her touch. Her hands shift upwards, fiddling with the buttons on Darlene’s flannel shirt as her mouth migrates to her neck. Darlene closes her eyes and tilts her head back, her fingers weaving through Dom’s hair as the redhead kisses further down towards her collarbone.

Just as Dom is just about to finish unbuttoning her shirt, they’re jolted apart when the redhead’s phone begins to vibrate on the coffee table. Dom swiftly pulls away to stare at it, but Darlene reaches up and places a hand on her cheek, turning her head so that her attention is back on her.

“No work-related distractions for the rest of the night, remember?” She reminds her with a smirk before lifting her upper body off the couch to capture the redhead’s lips in another kiss. She can feel the hesitance in Dom’s body language for a second, but she quickly relaxes and kisses back, her hands returning to Darlene’s shirt. The phone continues to vibrate on the table and it’s getting a little annoying, but Darlene tries her best to ignore it so she can focus on keeping Dom distracted; she flips them over so that she’s on top and grabs her face with her hands before swooping in for another kiss, humming against her mouth as she rolls her hips against hers. The phone finally stops vibrating just as Darlene begins to push Dom’s blazer off her shoulders, and she can’t help but grin triumphantly to herself as she helps Dom out of her blazer and drops it to the floor below them.

But of course the world never works the way she wants it to, so the phone immediately starts vibrating again, and this time Dom can’t ignore it; she stretches out an arm to grab it and holds it against her ear. “DiPierro.”

Darlene groans and sits up, straddling the redhead’s hips as she defeatedly watches her babble with whoever the hell decided to call and kill the mood. To be honest, the conversation does sound kind of dire and it’s a little concerning, but it’s still annoying as hell. Dom promised her that work wouldn’t intervene with their plans tonight, and she made it sound like she was determined to see that through. Guess she was wrong.

Dom’s still on the phone as she sits up; Darlene’s forced to crawl off of her, sighing before scooting to the far end of the couch and stubbornly crossing her arms. She glares out the window; it’s pitch dark outside, and it looks like it’s snowing a little.

She can feel Dom’s hand on her cheek, but she refuses to look at her. “Hey.” Dom’s voice is soft, apologetic. “I’m sorry, but I really have to-”

“You promised there wouldn’t be any distractions.” Darlene keeps her eyes trained on the view outside the window.

“I know, but this is urgent.” Dom sighs. “I wouldn’t do this if I felt like it wasn’t.”

Darlene shrugs. She can feel her eyes stinging, and her throat is starting to ache. “Whatever. Just...do what you have to do.”

“I won’t be long.” Dom insists. When she realizes Darlene isn’t going to make eye contact, her hand drops to her knee. “I’ll be back soon. I prom-”

“I wouldn’t finish that sentence if I were you.” Darlene laughs humourlessly. “You’ve already made one promise you can’t keep.”

She can see Dom leaning away in her peripheral vision. The redhead heaves another sigh before picking her blazer up off the floor; Darlene can hear her boots clopping against the hardwood as she moves farther and farther away, and before she knows it the door closes and she’s alone again.

The tears don’t fall until she finally turns her head and notices that Dom’s coat is no longer folded over one of the chairs by the table in the kitchen. Darlene shakes her head, biting down on her bottom lip as she tries to wipe her tears away, but they just keep coming, and it doesn’t look like they’re going to stop anytime soon.

“Fuck!” She screams into her hands, leaning so far forward that her head is nearly tucked between her knees. She hiccups as the tears continue to flow, soaking her corduroy pants and splashing onto the toes of her boots. Helplessness looms over her and she cries harder, wrapping her arms around herself as her shoulders tremble with heavy sobs.

Something between them is unraveling, and she’s deathly afraid it’s unfurling too quickly for her to figure out how to hold it together.

* * *

It’s nearly noon on Wednesday when Darlene wakes up alone in her bed. She rolls to face the side Dom usually sleeps on and frowns when the sheets aren’t crinkled with traces of her presence; it looks like she was never here.

She reaches for her phone and squints at the text notification on her screen:

_Ended up running a lot later than we thought. I’ll be back tonight, I promise._

Darlene shakes her head and laughs bitterly to herself before throwing her phone back on the nightstand. This is a joke. It has to be.

She gets up and trudges to the bathroom. After getting ready for the day, Darlene lumbers into the kitchen and opens the fridge even though she isn’t hungry. She stares at the leftover shawarma, but it just makes her think about last night and how terrible that was, so she sighs before reaching in and grabbing the package of sliced cheese instead. She slaps a couple of them onto some bread, spreads a thin layer of mayonnaise on the outside, and dumps everything into a pan. She zones out as she waits to flip the sandwich, which results in her burning the bread; she curses herself as she tosses the pan onto the table, glaring at her charred grilled cheese before stabbing it with a knife. She makes a thick, angry, diagonal slash across the bread, huffing before picking one slice up and frowning at it before taking a bite and immediately spitting it out. It tastes like shit.

After throwing everything into the trash, Darlene heads back into her room and sits on the edge of her bed, frowning as she opens the nightstand drawer and reaches for the stack of postcards. She carefully reads through each of them, smiling to herself when she comes across the postcard Dom wrote to her from Paris. She tries to picture it in her head: Dom dropping the bottle of wine into the river, profusely apologizing in drunken French to no one as onlookers walk past with slight concern on their faces. For some reason she can see it happening at dusk when the sun sinks into the skyline; she can see the Eiffel Tower’s silhouette in the distance, bold and black against a multicoloured sky. The endless shades of pink, red, orange, yellow, and purple hovering above Dom’s tousled head reflect back in the gentle rolling waves of the Seine, and remnants of the setting sun twinkle along its dark waters as boats filled with tourists lazily drift along.

She imagines the fading sunlight would make Dom’s hair look even redder than it already is, and she thinks the stony grey-blue in her eyes make a nice contrast to the warm colours smeared across the early evening sky. The thought of it makes her chest balloon with affection, and she comes to the conclusion that if she was by her side when she dropped that bottle, the first thing she would do is roll her eyes and call her a dumbass before pulling her in for a kiss. Sure, kissing in Paris at sunset is probably one of the most cliche, derivative things you can ever do, but she wants it anyway - in fact, she wants it so badly she can feel it throbbing inside of her, ricocheting off her bones and echoing in the spaces between her ribs.

She’s yearning for a memory that never even happened, and she feels so stupid for it because it _could’ve_ happened. She could’ve gotten on that plane and flown to Budapest with Dom. They could’ve gone to Berlin, to Prague, to Paris, anywhere together and she would’ve been happy as long as the redhead was with her - but at the same time, would they have been able to work things out if they ended up running away together? Would she have had the space she needed to do a little growing on her own before she could grow with Dom? Would she be where she is right now if she ended up going after all?

She bites her bottom lip as her eyes gloss over with tears. She knows she can do things on her own now, and she knows she can face whatever comes her way without relying on anyone else, but maybe...maybe it’s possible to be okay on her own _and_ need someone at the same time. Maybe it’s okay to need Dom even though she doesn’t have to lean on her for everything. It’s okay to not want Dom to drift away. It’s okay to want to keep her close. It doesn’t mean she isn’t independent; it just means she knows how important Dom is to her, and she knows that what they have is worth fighting for. It’s worth salvaging.

Darlene sucks in a quivering breath before putting the postcards away. She wraps her arms around herself as her eyes drift all over her room, swallowing hard before leaning back against the mattress. She wishes it was nighttime already so Dom can be here. She wants to fix things and she wants to fix them now; it feels like time is running out, like if she waits any longer to do something about it Dom will slip away and she’ll never be able to get her back. It’s a feeling she knows far too well, a feeling that she hates being familiar with. It happened far too often this past year and she’s determined to make this the very last time.

She knows she should probably find a way to distract herself - maybe another adventure with Flipper night do the trick, but at the same time she wants nothing more than to crawl back into bed and disintegrate into the sheets, so she does just that. Darlene presses her face into the pillow Dom always uses when she’s here and she’s instantly taken back to that morning after Thanksgiving. Out of all the times she felt like she was going to lose Dom, that was when she felt the closest.

Sulking over Dom must’ve taken a lot out of her, because she ends up falling asleep again despite the anxiety bouncing around inside of her. When she wakes up, her room is much darker; she glances at her phone for the time and her eyes widen when she realizes it’s just a little past four in the afternoon.

She heads to the bathroom and splashes cold water on her face to shake off the last of her fatigue, but it isn’t enough; she still feels sluggish, lethargic, like she’s running on fumes. She knows she’ll probably end up falling asleep again if she returns to her room, so she drags herself into the sitting area and plops down on the couch instead. She has no idea when Dom is going to show up, or if she’ll show up at all - and if she does, what is she going to say? How can she translate all of the feelings jumbling around in her brain into something that’s at least halfway coherent?

She feels nervous for some reason. The frantic stirring in the pit of her stomach makes her feel like she’s waiting for something bad to happen. Darlene groans and rakes a hand through her hair, sighing before reaching for the remote and turning on the TV. She really isn’t in the mood to watch anything, but she needs to do _something_. She can’t just sit here and pout all evening.

She cycles through the different channels dozens of times, huffing when she realizes there isn’t anything worth watching. She briefly thinks about heading out for a walk or something, but what if Dom comes by and she isn’t here? She can’t risk that.

So she stays put, mechanically flipping through the TV while periodically checking her phone. She becomes so tuned out that she doesn’t remember slumping further downward into the couch as exhaustion takes over again. She has absolutely no memory of falling asleep, but when she wakes up hours later in the dark with a headache and Dom’s hand in her hair again, anger quickly takes over and the first thing she does is scowl.

The redhead is kneeling next to her; the moonlight streaming in from the window illuminates the pained expression on her face. She’s still wearing yesterday’s clothes. “I’m sorry.” She whispers in a strained voice. “I don’t have an excuse for this. I just lost track of time.”

Darlene swats her hand away as she sits up, groaning as she rubs her eyes with her fists. “Why did you even bother coming?”

“I said I was going to.” Dom frowns. “I wanted to see you.”

“Well, congrats - you saw me.” Darlene reaches for her phone sitting on the coffee table and scoffs at the time. “When you said you were coming back tonight I didn’t think you meant at midnight.”

Dom groans as she closes her eyes. “I know I’ve been really bad with my timing lately, and it looks like I’ve been coming in and out whenever I feel like it, but trust me, I’d be more consistent if I could. It’s just this case-”

“Don’t fucking give me that.” Darlene’s eyes harden. “You know just as well as I do that you’re using this new case as an excuse to neglect your other responsibilities.”

The redhead sighs. “It’s the second time I stood you up and I really don’t-”

“Oh my _fucking_ God.” Darlene growls as she rises to her feet, stomping over to the kitchen area. “Get it through your thick ass skull, Dom - it was never about you standing me up. It was never about you not coming here and spending time together. I’ve been trying to tell you this since Monday.” She frustratingly pulls her fingers through her hair as Dom slowly stands up and cautiously makes her way towards her. “It would’ve been nice if you told me where you were, but what pisses me off the most about all of this is that you’re not taking care of yourself. You’re not eating, you’re not sleeping, you’re not taking breaks. You’re just chugging through this fucking case like what you did with Five/Nine and fsociety and you’re letting it ruin everything around you.”

“I don’t think you understand the severity of the situation.” There’s a bit of backbone to Dom’s tone now. “The people we’re after aren’t just hippies; they’re responsible for a string of arson incidents that have been popping up around the country lately. They’ve been hacking into municipal databases in a bunch of major cities to check up on upcoming projects for malls, chain stores, car dealerships - shit like that, then they head over to the construction site to burn everything down and sabotage the equipment. People are getting hurt and a lot of jobs are in jeopardy because of them.“

“I don’t give a fuck about who they are or what they’re doing.” Darlene glares at her. “You still need to take some time for yourself. How are you gonna catch these assholes if you’re too fucking tired to chase after them?”

“If I don’t figure out a way to get ahead of them, they’re going to burn something else down.” Dom shakes her head. “I can stop them from attacking again if I just-”

“So that’s where you were when I couldn’t find you on Monday.” Darlene lets out a sharp, sarcastic laugh. “You were at a fire, weren’t you?” When she spots the disbelief on the redhead’s expression she laughs again. “It was pretty obvious. You looked _and_ smelled like you just came out of a furnace.” She heaves a sigh. “You could’ve gotten hurt, or worse, and I’d have no fucking idea until I tune into the news the next day and find pictures of your fucking body bag.”

“I told you I would’ve reached out if I could.” Dom narrows her eyes. “And the fire was already out when I got there. I was fine.”

“If the fire was already out, then you definitely could’ve waited until the next day.” Darlene crosses her arms. “A burned down construction site isn’t gonna magically disappear overnight, Dom. It’ll still be there for you to poke around in the morning - and I’m pretty sure you’re not the only person on this case either. If this was such an emergency, other agents would’ve probably responded. You don’t always have to be the first one to show up.”

“Yeah, but I could’ve-”

“Could’ve what?” She quirks an eyebrow. “If the place was already burned down when you got there, the people who did it probably bailed a long ass time ago, so you wouldn’t have caught anyone no matter what. I doubt there’ll be a lot of evidence left behind if the fire was big enough to take down the entire fucking site, so getting there the second it ended wouldn’t have made that much of a difference.” She breathes in deep in a futile attempt to douse the rapidly rising flames in her chest, but it only feeds them; she can feel it licking her insides, scorching every inch of her. “Just stop trying to come up with an excuse. It’s not working.”

“My job doesn’t always keep regular hours, Darlene.” Dom’s hands curl into fists. “You know better than anyone that people don’t always commit crimes between nine to five. I’m going to have to work at shitty times of the day every now and then.”

Her words sting a little, but Darlene isn’t going to let her know that, so she scoffs and rolls her eyes. “Oh yeah, I’d _totally_ know, right?”

Dom sighs. “C’mon, you know what I mean.”

“I do.” Darlene glares at her. “So what, did you think I’d be okay with you just fucking off and disappearing for a few nights because I have hands on experience with the inner workings of the criminal mind?”

“No,” Dom‘s exasperated. “Jesus, Darlene, I-”

The flames roaring inside of her are starting to hurt. “Are you sure you were being honest last week when you said that you would eventually stop seeing me as a terrible person?”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Dom shakes her head. “Now you’re just picking a fight for the sake of fighting. You _know_ this has nothing to do with any of that. The fact of the matter is that this is my fucking job and there will be times when I won’t be around for the night, or I’ll have to do shit that I don’t really want to do. It’s how the real world works, Darlene, and there’s nothing I can do about it.”

“I’m pretty familiar with how the real world works, thanks.” She retorts. “Fine - if you don’t fucking care about what happens to you when you don’t look after yourself, why should I?”

Dom relents a little, sighing and stepping a little closer. “Don’t be like this.”

“Don’t be like _what?_ How can you expect me to be anything else right now when you clearly don’t give a fuck about anything except for your stupid job?” Darlene scoffs. “The last time I checked, you were my girlfriend way before you got this case. I should be allowed to worry.”

“And I was an agent _years_ before any of this fucking happened,” Dom snaps back, angrily gesturing towards her. “So if you’re gauging priority by how long something’s been in my life, you wouldn’t win by a long shot.”

Her words ruthlessly slice into her. The searing anger that was festering inside just moments ago is all but gone now, replaced with a weighted ache that painfully vibrates inside every hollow space within her. Darlene steps back, eyes glassy and her mouth slightly parted as if to say something, but she’s at a loss for words. She can feel a half-baked retort bubbling inside of her somewhere, but she can’t find her voice; it’s trapped in her throat, smothered by the tears she’s trying so hard to hold back.

There’s regret etched all over Dom’s face. “Shit,” She squeezes her eyes shut for a second and shakes her head. “Darlene, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean-”

Darlene forces herself to speak; her voice is trembling with restrained sobs, but it’s better than nothing. “Remember when you came back from Europe and you dragged me to your place so you could interrogate me?”

With anyone else she’d be yelling back. She’d be fighting tooth and nail to defend herself because getting angrier than the person she’s arguing with feels safer than showing them how she really feels, but this is Dom. Dom’s different. She always was, and that’s probably why this hurts so fucking much. It almost feels like the day when she told her off after she watched Irving kill Santiago; she was stunned by the venom in her words, and it rendered her speechless. All she could do was stare back and listen to her talk about how she wasn’t ever going to feel anything towards her except for pure, utter disdain. It hurts too much to be pissed off.

Dom’s brow crinkles with confusion. “Yeah. Why?”

“I told you that people are the most honest when they’re hurt.” Darlene stubbornly swipes at her eyes. “This is what I was talking about. People don’t lie when they’re angry. They say what they’re really feeling.”

Dom shakes her head again; she takes a step forward, swallowing hard when Darlene immediately takes a step back. “You know that isn’t true. My job isn’t more important than you. It never was.”

“I told you that it’s not about what’s more fucking important.” Darlene growls as more tears rush into her eyes, blurring everything in front of her before she swipes at them again. “You spent those three months away from here because you needed a break from your job and all of the shit that made you miserable. I thought you learned to let go of all of that, and that you learned it’s okay to step back every once in awhile - but now...now it feels like you’re back to where you started.” She pauses to wipe more of her tears away. “You weren’t supposed to go back to that. You’re supposed to be better.” She sniffles before sucking in a sharp breath and locking eyes with the redhead, who’s helplessly staring back. “If you’re not better, then that means this won’t work, and I can’t _not_ have this work because even though I fucking hate you sometimes, I need you.” Darlene finally lets her defences down, dropping her head as she breaks into sobs. “I need you because you make me want to be better, to keep going even when it feels like I can’t anymore. This won’t work if the both of us aren’t trying, Dom. I want this to work. I _need_ this to work.”

Dom looks completely devastated; her tone is weary, defeated, and her grey eyes are despondent. “You know I want this to work too. I want that more than anything.”

She glowers at her. “Do you? Because it doesn’t fucking feel like it.” Darlene shakes her head. “As fucking stupid as this sounds, I want to do better because I want you to be proud of me and I want to make you feel like you aren’t putting all this effort in me for nothing. I just want to do the same for you, but damn, Dom, you’re so _fucking_ stubborn and it makes it _so_ much harder than it needs to be.” Darlene clamps her eyes shut as the tears squeeze out of the corner of her eyes. “I came way too close to losing you so many times last year. I can’t go through any of that again. I just can’t.”

She buries her face into her hands as she continues to cry. She hates that she’s been reduced to this childish, bawling mess, but it’s all she’s capable of right now. When she feels Dom’s arms encircle her, holding her tight against her chest, Darlene chokes on another sob before pressing her face into her shoulder and soaking her shirt with her tears.

“I said I wasn’t going anywhere without you.” She can barely hear Dom’s soft voice over her blubbering. “I’m always going to be here. You’re not going to lose me.”

“Then why does it feel like I am?” She hiccups as Dom presses a kiss to the side of her head, another one to her temple, and a final one to her cheek. “Are you sure you’re not just trying to find a way to gradually ease off of me after the whole Susan Jacobs thing?”

Dom blinks. “What? No, Jesus H, Darlene-” she leans back a bit to gape at her. “It has nothing to do with that. I told you it doesn’t have anything to do with you.”

“And how am I supposed to believe that?” She glares at her through her tears. “Look, I get that I can be a total fucking nightmare to be around sometimes, but-”

“Stop thinking like that.” Dom’s tone is firm. “Whatever you’ve been telling yourself lately, none of it is true. The truth is...I’m just really bad at maintaining a proper work-life balance. It has nothing to do with how I feel about you.” She sighs. “It’s my fault for making you think you had something to do with it, but trust me, Darlene - all of the shit we talked about last week, I meant all of it. I want to be with you. That hasn’t changed and it’s not going to change anytime soon.”

Darlene shakes her head. “You’re supposed to be better at this work-life balance thing. I shouldn’t be fucking reminding you to get some sleep and I definitely shouldn’t be cleaning up after you either. You were supposed to leave all of that behind, Dom. That was the whole point of you fucking off to Europe for three months.”

“I know, and it worked for a little while, and then...” The redhead shrugs. “You can’t expect an impromptu vacation to just instantly fix everything. It doesn’t work like that. There’s going to be setbacks.”

“Setbacks happen, but that doesn’t mean you should be okay with them.” Darlene sniffles. “When they do happen, you do everything you can to make sure they don’t happen again. I know you, Dom - you’re not the type to just lie down and fucking take things as they are; you fight back with everything you got, and you haven’t been doing any of that recently and it hurts to watch. You haven’t been yourself lately and it pisses me off because I know you’re better than this.” She pauses to suck in a breath. “You also shouldn’t just pretend they’re not happening, either. If you want these setbacks to stop, you have to face them head on.” Her eyes drop to the floor. “And you shouldn’t bite my fucking head off for trying to get you to do the same thing you’re always trying to get me to do. You push me to get better every day; I want to push you too.”

“You’re right.” Dom lowers her head a little. “I know you were just trying to help. I shouldn’t have kept brushing you off like that.”

“I get that you can’t always work regular hours, but it doesn’t have to happen _all_ the time. If there’s something that can wait ‘til morning, wait until fucking morning.” Darlene throws her head back and groans. “You’re so caught up in trying to help other people that you don’t realize you won’t be able to help anyone if you aren’t helping yourself first. You can’t keep fucking doing this, Dom - you’re gonna burn out, and when that happens you won’t be able to save anyone. More people are just gonna get hurt. I know you don’t want that.”

“I know.” Dom sighs. “You’re right about everything you just said, and you’re right about this not working if the both of us aren’t pulling our weight. I definitely haven’t been pulling mine recently.” She leans in and drops a kiss to her hair. “I’m really sorry, Darlene; I say the dumbest things when I’m angry. I didn’t mean any of it.”

“Tell me about it.” Darlene scoffs through her tears. “I fucking hate it when we fight.”

Dom tries to smile. “We fight all the time. It’s kind of our thing.”

Darlene sniffles and shakes her head. “Not like this. These kinds of fights suck.”

“I don’t like it either.” The redhead sighs. “Look, it doesn’t matter how long I’ve had my job. It doesn’t matter what cases I’m assigned to. None of that matters if I don’t have you here with me.” There’s a small rueful smile curving the corners of her mouth. “I’m sorry for being such an asshole these past few days. I could give you every excuse in the book but none of them justify how I treated you. You deserve better than that, and I’m gonna do everything I can to make sure that happens from here on out.”

Darlene angrily thumps her forehead against Dom’s shoulder. “You are so _fucking_ stupid sometimes, you know that?” When she hears Dom chuckle, she grits her teeth in annoyance before wiping the last of her tears away. “I mean it. You’re a fucking idiot and I hate you so fucking much.”

“Huh.” Dom blinks as she tightens her arms around Darlene’s waist. “Guess people really are more honest when they’re angry.”

Darlene kind of wants to laugh at the redhead’s terrible attempt at a joke, but she groans instead and headbutts her shoulder a second time. “Stop. I’m supposed to be mad at you.”

Dom nuzzles her nose into her dark hair. “But I don’t want you to be mad at me.”

Darlene leans away and reaches up to grasp her face with her hands, pulling Dom in so that their foreheads are touching. “I know I’ve been making it a lot about me lately. I always end up doing something stupid and you come in to save the day, and I’m grateful for that - but I need you to know that I’m here for you too. My problems shouldn’t overshadow yours. Maybe I’m not as good at making things better like you can, but I’m still here to help you, Dom. You always tell me I don’t have to go through all of this shit alone; the same goes for you too. If something’s bothering you, or work is stressing you out or whatever, I’m here for you. You don’t have to hold all of that in anymore.”

Dom throws her a small smile. “You haven’t been making it about you. Shit happens, Darlene. We can’t always control that.”

“I know, but I don’t want to make you feel like I can’t be there for you like how you’ve always been there for me. Just because I’m terrible at getting my shit together doesn’t mean I can’t help you with yours.”

“You never made me feel like that,” Dom reaches up to brush the hair away from Darlene’s face. “But you’re still right. I should be more open with you - I _need_ to be more open with you.” She plants a kiss to her forehead. “I’m gonna be better, I promise.”

Darlene sucks in a shaky breath. “You said that you wanted to grow up with me. Do you still mean that?”

Dom’s eyes soften for her. “Of course I do.”

“Then we have to do this together, okay?” Darlene swallows as her eyes well up again. “Maybe the whole lone wolf thing worked for you before, but shit's different now. You're not alone anymore.” She sucks in a breath. “If one of us is going through something, we have to let the other person know. We can’t shut each other out.”

“Couldn’t agree more.” Dom’s voice is barely above a whisper as she gently wipes Darlene’s tears away. “When I say I want to grow up with you, I mean that I want everything that comes with it.”

“It’s not always going to be easy.” Darlene raises her hands to grasp Dom’s wrists, sniffling as the redhead continues to brush her tears away. “You know me - I’m a fucking mess of a human being and sometimes I make things hard on purpose because I’m terrible like that.”

“And that’s okay.” Dom smiles. “I know it’ll be hard sometimes - and trust me, I know you make things hard on purpose,” They both laugh quietly. “But I can make things hard too, and you still want me anyway, and you still want to keep trying even when I don’t listen.“

“Because you do the exact same thing for me.” Darlene shakes her head. “I royally fuck up on a daily basis, yet you’re still here and you still think I’m worth the trouble. You stick around even when you shouldn’t. You’re the kind of person who shows up and stays. I want to be that person for you too.”

“And that’s why this has to work - we’re _that_ kind of person for each other.” Dom‘s tone is firm. “It‘s gonna be hard as hell sometimes, and we're gonna have to work on it every day, but I want to do it. I want _and_ need this to work, just like you do.” She throws her a small, apologetic smile. “I want this, and I want you -I want _all_ of you, all the time.”

This causes another fresh round of tears to spring to Darlene’s eyes. She tries to laugh it off as Dom brushes them away. “Okay, Ryan Gosling.”

Dom furrows her brow and leans away from her. “What?”

Darlene looks just as confused. “Have you not seen The Notebook?”

“Oh.” Dom blinks. “I have.” She takes a second to think about it. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I have.”

“Then surely you remember the part where Ryan Gosling tells Rachel McAdams that he’s willing to work on their relationship every single day because he loves her that much?”

“I dunno.” Dom shrugs. “I haven’t watched it in awhile.”

Darlene groans. “Oh my God - moment officially ruined.”

“You brought it up first.” Dom blinks again as she comes to a sudden realization. “Wait - you watched The Notebook? I swear you hated those kinds of movies.”

“Whatever.” Darlene glares at her before sighing in resignation. “Just...come here already. Jesus.”

Dom rolls her eyes, but she laughs again before leaning in to finally kiss her. It feels cathartic, almost healing in a way, to be kissed like this after such a big argument; Darlene can feel a weight lifting off her shoulders as she loses herself in the moment a little. It finally feels like things are okay again - like, _really_ okay this time.

When they pull apart, Darlene sniffles again as she presses her cheek against Dom’s shoulder. “Stay with me tonight.” She mumbles against the collar of her shirt. “I know you have work tomorrow, but...I just need you here.”

“I wasn’t planning on sleeping without you.” Dom murmurs against her hair. “I’m pretty sure I have some of my shit lying around here anyway, so I should be fine for tomorrow.”

“You do.” Darlene mutters as she backs away from her, grabbing her by the hand so she can lead her into the bedroom. “You have _a lot_ of shit lying around here, actually. You definitely have a toothbrush in the bathroom, and you left your glasses when you were here last Saturday.” She nods towards the nightstand by the bed, and lo and behold - Dom’s glasses are sitting right next to the lamp.

The redhead raises her eyebrows when she spots them. “So _that’s_ where they went.” She frowns. “Wait, why didn’t you just tell me they were here when I asked if you saw them?”

“Because I was pissed off at you, dickhead.” Darlene glances over her shoulder to glare at her as she heads towards the closet. “How are you so good at your job, but when it comes to literally everything else you’re completely fucking useless?”

Dom rolls her eyes as she follows her. Once they’re both at the entrance to the closet, Darlene whirls around to face her; the redhead’s eyes track her hands as they reach out to unbutton her shirt. “I’m willing to bet that you stole half of the stuff I have here.”

Darlene pulls Dom’s shirt off of her and quickly undresses before she slips it on herself. Once she finishes buttoning it up, she bends over, grabs an oversized t-shirt crumpled on the floor, and carelessly throws it in Dom’s face. “Yeah, because I’m always on the lookout for a new blazer.”

After washing up and Dom finishes changing, they crawl into bed together; Darlene cuddles close to the redhead, breathing her in as she burrows her face into the curve of her neck. It feels like she hasn’t done this in decades even though it’s really only been a few days.

“You make it _so_ easy to hate you sometimes,” She mumbles sleepily. “But you always find a way to make me unhate you, and I can’t figure out if that makes me hate you more or not.”

“That makes zero sense.” Dom mutters.

“I don’t care. It makes sense to me.” Darlene yawns. “I love you, Dom. I hope you know that.”

“I love you too, Darlene.” Dom kisses her on the forehead. “And for the record, I _am_ proud of you. You yelling at me all night shows how much progress you’ve made in the last few months. You’ve never made me feel like I haven’t been wasting any time or effort on you, either. You’ve always been worth it.” She kisses her again, laughing quietly. “I think all of that yelling kind of made me love you more, actually. It reminded me of how much you care.” She sighs into her hair. “You make things better for me too, you know. I need you here with me.”

Darlene can feel affection inflating in the pit of her stomach; she tries to swallow it, but it quickly fills her up, spreading to her limbs and engulfing every inch of her. “If yelling at you is the only way I can get you to get your shit together, I’ll gladly yell some more.” She nuzzles her head against Dom’s neck and closes her eyes. “And I lied about you being completely useless - you’re good at _one_ other thing, and that’s being there for me. Other than that and your job, though...useless - like, pathetically so.”

“And that’s why I have you to pick up the slack.” She can hear the grin in Dom’s voice and she shakes her head.

“Dumbass.” Darlene utters before yawning again and snuggling closer. “Don’t think you’re off the hook; I’m still mad at you.”

It doesn’t take long for fatigue to consume her; the last thing she remembers before succumbing is hearing Dom’s soft chuckle before feeling the warmth of her lips against her forehead.

* * *

When Darlene wakes up on Thursday morning, she isn’t surprised when she doesn’t find Dom lying next to her. She reaches for her phone on the nightstand and glances at the time; she should definitely be at work now.

She runs a hand through her hair, turning her head to glance out the window. The sun is streaking in voraciously, lighting up the entire room, and she sighs before scooting towards the edge of the bed to get up - but just as she’s about to push the covers away, the doorknob rattles, and in steps Dom. She’s barefoot, still dressed in the clothes she slept in with her glasses perched on her nose, and she’s clutching her phone in one hand.

Darlene raises an eyebrow. “Why the hell are you still here? Don’t you have this thing called _a job?”_

Dom shrugs as she tosses her phone on the nightstand before sitting next to her. “I told my boss I’m not coming in today.”

Is she still asleep? What kind of weird dream is she having right now? “Wait, what?”

Dom shrugs again. “Told him I ate something funny last night and I haven’t felt right since. He said I better stay home; if I come in and throw up on the evidence he’ll fire me on the spot.”

Darlene furrows her brow. “You actually...faked calling in sick?” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Why?”

Dom chuckles as she moves in closer, placing a hand on Darlene’s hip as she kisses her forehead. “I think you already know the answer.”

“This can’t be real.” Darlene laughs. “You would never skip work if you didn’t have to.”

“Well, that’s the thing - I had to.” Dom’s tone is factual, which only further confuses her.

“For what?”

Dom slides her hand from Darlene’s hip to the small of her back, pulling her in closer so she can tenderly kiss her. When they pull apart, Dom bumps her forehead against hers and throws her a small smile. “For this.”

Darlene’s pulse picks up; she can feel it thudding in her ears. “Christmas is just a few days away. Do you really think your boss believes you have food poisoning?”

“Who cares?” Dom laughs. “He’s probably happy I’m actually using my sick days for once.” She kisses her again. “You’re more important to me. You always were.”

Darlene can feel a lump forming in her throat. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

“Yes I did.” Dom reaches upward to tuck a strand of brown hair behind Darlene’s ear. “I want to make it up to you.”

“You don’t have to.” Darlene sighs.

“I do.” Dom insists. “We just spent three whole weeks without each other, and now that we’re back to normal I screw it all up again. I don’t want to spend another Christmas with a hole in my chest.”

Darlene’s eyes start to sting with the threat of incoming tears. “Very poetic of you.”

The redhead chuckles. “I mean it, though. You mean so much to me, way more than my job ever will, and I’m sorry for not showing that lately. Old habits die hard, I guess.”

“I told you that it was never about what or who was more important. The whole point of you boarding that stupid plane in Boston was so you could stop mixing up work with your personal life.” Darlene rubs her eyes, but the annoying stinging still persists.

“I know.” Dom cups her cheek with a hand and rubs a thumb beneath her eye. “I guess spending three weeks without you sorta made me forget.”

“I shouldn’t need to be around for you to remember that, though.” Darlene sniffles. “I mean, ideally, I’d like to be around you all the time, but you should be able to separate the two on your own.”

“And I promise I’ll work harder on that.” Dom kisses her on the forehead, then drops another kiss to the end of her nose. “I’d like it if you were around me all the time too.”

Darlene can’t help but smile at that. “Well, you’re here now. I guess that counts for something.”

Dom smiles back before leaning in for another kiss. “I love you, Darlene. I know I’ve been doing a shitty job at expressing that lately, but I just want you to know that you’ve always been so, _so_ important to me. That never changed. It’s never going to change.” She briefly pauses to brush the hair away from Darlene’s face; her fingertips ghosting across her forehead cause Darlene’s arms to tingle with goosebumps. “I told you that I’d never hurt you on purpose, and I know I didn’t do it intentionally, but I still hate that I hurt you. I’m going to try my best to make sure none of that ever happens again, I promise you that - and that’s a promise I will definitely keep.”

“You’re important to me too, asshole. That’s why I yell at you all the time...and it’s also why I worry about you.” Darlene forces an edge to her tone in an attempt to hide the affection rapidly growing inside of her, but when she spots the wide grin on Dom’s face she immediately knows that her attempt is in vain, so her voice begins to waver a bit. “I love you too, Dom... _so_ much. You have no idea how much you mean to me.”

The redhead’s expression softens; there’s something solemn in her stare as she reaches out towards her again to cup her cheek. Her thumb lovingly strokes her skin as she slowly leans in to kiss her again. Darlene’s heart is fluttering in her chest and she feels so, _so_ stupid because of it. Only this super annoying, socially awkward, fake redhead with the dumbest looking glasses in the entire world would make her feel like this.

She curves a hand behind Dom’s neck, humming against her lips as the redhead places her other hand on her hip to tug her closer. She gradually leans back, pulling Dom down with her as she sinks into the mattress. Darlene reaches up to pull Dom’s glasses away from her face, and they share a laugh as she reaches over her head to toss them on the nightstand. She can feel the redhead’s hands on her hips; they give her one firm squeeze before sliding beneath her shirt to toy with the waistband of her underwear.

Darlene’s breath is ragged against Dom’s ear as the redhead pulls her underwear further downward; her lips are curved into an impish smirk when Dom leans back to fully take it off. When she leans back in to kiss her, her hands find Darlene’s thighs, ghosting along her skin before stopping right above her knees; she hitches both of her legs up against her sides, licking her lips before moving in to trail kisses from her jaw down to her collarbone.

Darlene gasps when she feels Dom’s teeth worrying the skin on her neck, lifting one hand off the mattress so she can place it on the back of Dom’s head. Her other hand eventually finds its way to the back of the redhead’s shoulder, grasping the worn out fabric of her t-shirt as Dom’s mouth moves across her collarbone towards the centre of her chest. The redhead’s fingers begin to fumble with the buttons on her shirt; with every button that comes undone, she can feel Dom kissing a newly exposed patch of skin. She repeats this process as she moves lower and lower, and when the last button is finally undone she helps Darlene out of the shirt, tossing it over her shoulder before gripping her thighs again, pulling her to the foot of the bed. Darlene draws her legs up a bit, knees bent and feet on the mattress just as Dom slips off, sinking to her knees on the floor; she licks her lips again before spreading her thighs with her hands and finally moving in between her legs. When Darlene feels the warmth of the redhead’s tongue teasing her sensitive skin she clamps her eyes shut as a loud moan escapes her lips.

An hour has gone by when Darlene throws her head back against the pillows, closing her eyes as she gasps with satiated laughter. She takes one hand away from Dom’s hair so she can push her own hair back over her head, and she smiles when she feels Dom gingerly kissing the inside of her thigh. She glances downward to peer at her; Dom’s back on the bed, clothes all but gone, with her head nestled between her legs. Her hands are curved over the tops of her thighs, tattoos stretched tight over the bold curves of her biceps, and her hair is cascading down her shoulders in careless red waves. Her eyes are radiant beneath the late morning sunlight, highlighting the steely grey-blue in her irises, and her cheeks are flushed pink from exertion. Her lips are tilted in a crooked, almost boyish smile; it forces Darlene’s stomach to flip over in giddy, childish excitement. A part of her wants to hit herself for feeling like a stupid, lovesick teenager, but the longer she stares at Dom, the more she realizes that feeling like this is pretty much inevitable. How can Dom look the way she does right now and _not_ provoke this kind of response?

Dom lowers her head and kisses her again, right above the spot where her tongue was moments earlier, and Darlene swallows hard. She buries her hands in her hair as the redhead rolls her shoulders to flex the muscles on her back; she continues to kiss upward on Darlene’s navel towards her stomach, then her sternum before stopping at the base of her throat. Her mouth lingers on her collarbone for a few long seconds before she finally raises her head, squeezing her thighs with her hands before throwing her another crooked smile and leaning in to finally kiss her on the lips.

It’s those extra few seconds Dom spends on her, that little bit of attention she adds on top of what she’s already showering her with, that makes her _so_ much more attractive than anyone else she’s ever been with. It makes her feel like she’s the only other person in this world who exists, like she’s the only one who matters. She feels so precious, so valued, so rare and uncommon when Dom touches her like this. She’s a priceless artifact in her hands, a one of a kind piece of art that cannot be imitated or replicated. The way she handles her during moments like these makes her feel beautiful - a word she would never think to use when describing herself, but it feels right when Dom is around.

Darlene shifts her hands to press her palms against the sides of Dom’s head, closing her eyes and breathing in deep through her nose as she melts into the kiss. Her hands continue to hold her head when they break apart, their chests heaving as they quietly laugh amongst themselves.

“You’ve been holding out on me, DiPierro.” Darlene mumbles against the redhead’s mouth.

“A lot’s happened in the past few weeks.” Dom mumbles back.

“So you’re saying that we have to have a huge fight in order for the sex to be really good?”

Dom quirks an eyebrow. “Was it not as good before?”

Darlene gawks at her. “What? No. Honest to God, you’re the best lay I’ve ever had, and trust me, that says _a lot-”_

Dom squeezes her eyes shut. “Please don’t refer to me as a _lay_ ever again.”

Darlene effortlessly continues her sentence as if Dom never interrupted her. “-but everything we’ve had before pales in comparison to what we had just now, and I don’t think it’s just coincidence that it happened right after we fought.”

Dom rolls her eyes. “This isn’t the first time we’ve done it after a fight.”

“Yeah, but after the fight we had on Thanksgiving, we didn’t see each other for three weeks...and then, when we got back together, we had another big fight.” Darlene smacks her hands together, curving her palms around an imaginary ball. “All of that shit just snowballed together, which led to you giving me not just one, but _two_ of the gushiest orgasms in human history.”

Dom leans back and groans. “Oh my God.”

Darlene laughs as she reaches out to pull her back in, toothily grinning up at her when their foreheads touch. “Don’t act like you aren’t proud of it. I know you are.” Her expression suddenly softens. “But if I’m being honest, I’d give up the chance of having them again if that means we’ll stop fighting.”

Dom throws her a small, sad smile before leaning in to kiss her. “I love you.” She murmurs when they pull apart seconds later, shifting slightly to press another kiss to her cheek. “I can’t promise you that we won’t fight ever again, but I can promise that I’ll try harder at getting better so we have less things to fight about.” She pauses for a second, grinning ear to ear. “We’re still going to have little fights every once in awhile though, right? It’s gonna feel weird if we don’t. Can you picture us actually getting along? ‘Cause I can’t.”

Darlene laughs and rolls her eyes. “You’re a dick,” She kisses her again, humming against her mouth. “But I love you too.”

She glances downward and her breath hitches in her throat when she spots the faint scar on the redhead’s chest. It’s a formidably sized slash running vertically down the middle, pencil-thin and just long enough for a small knife to slide through. Since it was such a clean cut with nearly surgical precision, it didn’t leave much permanent damage on the skin; the scar is about a semitone lighter than the rest of Dom’s body, rendering it nearly invisible. If Darlene didn’t know it was there in the first place, she probably would’ve never noticed it.

She reaches for the scar, noting how the skin dips slightly beneath her fingertips. It’s a little tighter too; it’s rigid, like the skin is bracing itself for another hit. Every time she looks at it, every time she touches it, the memories always rush back: The gurgled gasping, the blood trickling out of the corner of Dom’s mouth, the way she looked when she told her to leave and find her brother. She remembers the ache screaming inside, the tears blurring nearly everything in front of her as she watched the redhead collapse on the floor with the hilt of Janice’s knife sticking out of her shirt. She remembers crying out her name, helplessly watching Dom writhe beneath her as Janice casually recited a scientific breakdown of the near fatal injury she just inflicted.

Maybe Thanksgiving was when Darlene felt closest to losing her, but last Christmas was the only time she felt like she was going to lose her permanently. If Dom didn’t get over the Susan Jacobs thing and chose to never speak to her again, at least there’s some comfort in knowing that she’s still out there somewhere, and that she’s safe. If Dom bled out in Angela’s apartment, that would’ve been it; she wouldn’t be anywhere except six feet under or shoved into an urn. She would just be gone forever, and the mere thought of that makes Darlene ache all over again.

The warmth of Dom’s hand over hers pulls her out of her thoughts. The smile she’s giving her is reassuring, and her eyes are so full of affection that it nearly drives Darlene to tears. She’s never felt so wanted before, so loved, so cared for, so...special. It’s overwhelming. So this is what she’s been missing out on all these years. She’s not sure if she fully understands it yet, but she understands enough to know now that this is what she’s always wanted, and now that she finally has it, she’s going to do her absolute best to make sure she doesn’t risk losing it again.

Dom squeezes her hand. “I’m not going anywhere.” She says this as if she can read her mind, because of course she can. This is Dom, after all; one look from her and every single thought in Darlene’s head is instantly decrypted and out in the open for her to access. She’s at her most vulnerable every time she meets eyes with her, but that’s okay. Maybe her source code isn’t the prettiest to look at and there are some functions that aren’t necessarily productive or useful, but Dom would never infect or exploit it. She wouldn’t change or manipulate a single thing even though there are some variables that she doesn’t wholly agree with or understand. It took Darlene a lot longer than she wants to admit, but she knows now it’s a quality she can’t find in just anyone; it takes a special kind of person to look at her imperfections and love her just the same.

Darlene swallows hard as her eyes well up, and she sniffles when Dom tenderly brushes her tears away. She feebly tries to downplay her stupidity with a laugh. “You better not.”

Dom throws her another smile before leaning in. “Are you still mad at me?” She murmurs, eyes slowly closing as she kisses her; it’s slow, meticulously calculated, teasing, and sensual.

Darlene can feel herself getting worked up again. When Dom breaks the kiss, she almost wants to pout with disappointment. “Maybe a little.”

“Too mad to say yes if I asked you to go somewhere with me?” Dom sighs against her mouth, forcing round after around of electric pulses down Darlene’s spine.

She grins as the giddy, dumbstruck-teenager-in-love-like excitement from earlier comes back. “Are you asking me out?”

“What if I am?” The redhead briefly kisses her again. That uneven, boyish smile from before makes a comeback, and it nearly knocks the wind out of her. “Let me take you somewhere.” Dom’s voice is coarse, gravelly, and while her eyes are heavy lidded, the stare she’s giving her is intense, laser-focused on her and only her; Darlene is certain she’s never felt this attracted to another human being before.

She pulls Dom in so that their lips are touching again, humming against her as she pretends to think it over. “I guess I’ll humour you.”

“How’s brunch sound?”

Darlene snorts. “Oh my God. We’re not gonna be one of _those_ couples, are we?”

Dom chuckles. “Well, I dunno about you, but I could really go for some waffles right about now.”

There’s a brief pause. “Okay, waffles _do_ sound pretty fucking good.” She presses her mouth against hers in another kiss. “Take me to brunch.”

“Gladly.” The redhead slides both arms around her and pulls her up as she backs away from the bed, securing Darlene’s legs around her waist before fully standing up. “We should probably get ready.”

Darlene laughs as she throws her arms around Dom’s neck, laughing louder as Dom walks the both of them towards the bathroom. “At this rate, it’ll be lunch by the time we get there.”

Dom chuckles again before tilting her head back so she can kiss her. “A burger sounds pretty good too.”

She steps into the bathroom and kicks the door shut.


End file.
